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Fifteen months after the San Francisco earthquake, Henry Joseph Patterson1 was born in the city of San Francisco on July 17, 1907. His father, Henry Colquit Patterson, was a railroad switchman from Tennessee. His mother, Mary (Donohoe) Patterson, was a native of Ireland. By the time of the 1910 United States census, the family was […]

The Boston Red Sox were clinging to the slimmest of leads in the American League East Division. They had just lost two of three games to the Milwaukee Brewers at County Stadium. A quick look at the standings on July 4, 1975, showed that the Red Sox were in a virtual tie with the Brew […]

Jesse Levan was the last baseball player to be banned for trying to fix games. A two-time minor-league batting champion, he was held back by injuries and was no longer a prospect when he was banished from professional baseball for life in 1959. He always denied conspiring to throw games, but the damning evidence against […]

Right-handed pitcher Jim Dorsey spent 11 years in professional baseball, six years in the Angels system and five in the Red Sox system. Both Los Angeles teams had been after him as a prospect. The Angels drafted him out of Grover Cleveland High School in Reseda (California) in the 21st round (486th overall) in June […]

It is fitting that Bill Sayles started his big league career in Boston. The Sayles family had come full circle. He may not have realized it, but he was not the first of his family to ply his trade in Massachusetts. His ancestors landed on Boston’s shore before Boston was Boston. The Sayles family can […]

It’s easy to find high praise about Frank White from members of the Baseball Hall of Fame, ranging from managers and executives for whom he worked (John Schuerholz and Whitey Herzog) to longtime players on opposing teams such as Reggie Jackson.1 Still, there may be no more significant comment about White than from Hall of […]

During the 2000s, Carlos Zambrano was a mainstay at the top of the Chicago Cubs’ rotation. Though lacking the renown of teammates like Kerry Wood, Mark Prior, and Sammy Sosa, the three-time All-Star led the Cubs in wins above replacement during the first decade of the new millennium. Nicknamed El Toro (Spanish for bull) and […]

John Young carried an impressive 6-foot-3, 210-pound frame during his baseball playing days. Even more impressive than his physical stature on the field, however, was the stature he later gained as a baseball ambassador for the underprivileged. In founding the Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities program, Young left an indelible mark on the game that […]

Harry Butts was a left-handed pitcher who played professional baseball from 1946 through 1953. His résumé included stints in the Negro American League, the ManDak League, the Piedmont League, winter-league play in Puerto Rico and Venezuela, and at least two starts in a Newark Eagles uniform in 1946. In the early 1950s he was one […]

To both his 19th century playing counterparts and today’s baseball historians, the name Jim Devlin resonates of scandal. The star pitcher for the Louisville Grays, Devlin – along with three teammates – was expelled from baseball for game-fixing during the 1877 National League pennant chase. For decades thereafter they served as the principals of a […]

In the spring of 1973 Dick Ruthven achieved a rare baseball feat. He became just the fifth pitcher since the abolition of the final bonus rule in 1962 to leap straight from college baseball into the major leagues. Stardom was predicted. He drew comparisons to Tom Seaver. Ruthven became an All-Star and earned a World […]

One of the more colorful aspects of baseball history is the wide, imaginative variety of nicknames assigned to the players by their teammates and the media. Some of the sobriquets lend an air of strength and might to the recipients that their birth names might otherwise not. Edwin Snider might not have struck fear in […]

A sellout crowd of 30,111 watched their hometown Cincinnati Reds fall to the Los Angeles Dodgers by a score of 3–2 in the 1969 National League opener. This game “launched the second century of professional baseball in the city where the Cincinnati Red Stockings were organized in 1869.”1 Don Drysdale and Bill Singer of the […]

Jim Bouton’s Ball Four is full of cutting personal commentary on players, coaches, managers and front-office staff. One of the most memorable and damning criticisms is credited to Bouton’s roommate, pitcher Gary Bell: “Carl Yastrzemski is for himself first and second and the hell with everybody else.”1 While Bouton depicted the longtime Red Sox star […]

Like most forces of nature, Paul Lo Duca’s twin eruptions in June 2007 were remarkable for both their spontaneity and the havoc they left behind. Frustrated with his team’s recent struggles and what he considered undue expectations from the press, on June 23 the New York Mets catcher littered the diamond with his equipment after […]

When five Philadelphia Phillies pitchers stopped David Dahl without a hit on August 12, 2016, the Rockies’ rookie left fielder missed an opportunity to post a new MLB record. He’d hit safely in all 17 games of his career since debuting on July 25, tying a record set 75 years earlier by Chuck Aleno of […]

This one was not only a game-winner; it was also a pennant-clincher. And the only inside-the-park homer Ted Williams ever hit. The champagne that had traveled with the Boston Red Sox from Washington to Philadelphia and then to Detroit was again placed on a train and traveled on to Cleveland. One never would have guessed […]

“There have been few World Series battles in history that carried as much in the way of melodramatic suspense,” gushed syndicated sportswriter Grantland Rice about Carl Hubbell’s 11-inning complete-game victory over the Washington Senators in Game Four of the World Series to give the New York Giants a seemingly insurmountable three-games-to-one lead.1 John Drebinger of […]

On June 26, 1998, the San Francisco Giants (46-34) hosted the Texas Rangers (45-33) in a summer evening contest at 3Com Park at Candlestick Point. A crowd of 18,180 was on hand to watch the interleague game. Throughout the game, the winds in left field, which gusted up to 14-22 miles per hour,1 were swirling, […]

Home fans at Forbes Field booed Roberto Clemente on the first Sunday of the 1969 season, the 15th of his legendary career with the Pittsburgh Pirates, following inflammatory local press coverage of a spring-training injury, three comeback-stalling double plays in two games, and an error in right field. Clemente acknowledged the crowd graciously, tipping his […]

The start of the 1915 season was going so poorly for the Buffalo Blues that many thought the team might be jinxed.1 After winning five of 10 games to start the season, the Blues lost 16 of their next 19 games, and were sitting in last place in the Federal League, with a pitiful record […]

“It’s always good when you get into a situation where you can put your team on top. It was a good day. Our ballclub, we kept fighting to the end. That’s what we do. We fight till the last out is made, and we’re not going to stop fighting.” – Manny Machado1 For much of […]

Zack Wheat, more than four decades after playing his last major-league game, experienced a revival of fame in 1969 thanks to another Dodgers slugger who put on a hitting clinic against National League hurlers. Willie Davis tied Wheat’s 29-game streak on September 1, 1969, in a game against the Mets; it ended two games later […]

To some observers, the 1990 major-league baseball season seemed at times like a 162-game formality, a steady march toward the Oakland A’s winning their third straight American League pennant and repeating as World Series champions. Sports Illustrated, Athlon’s Baseball, The Sporting News Baseball Yearbook, Inside Sports Baseball Preview, and Baseball Digest all agreed that everyone […]